With so much down time, Mike Lombardi of the NFL Network thinks Bill Belichick could really dangerous for opponents this year.

“He has unique ability to study an opponent and get down to the roots and the essence of what they’re doing well, and what they’e not doing well, and be able to adapt that into what he does, and that’s the key right there,” Lombardi told the Boston Herald. “It’s being able to transform an idea, into a working idea within your scheme. You just can’t take someone else’s stuff and put it into your system, or else you have a lot of different systems not working well together. So Bill is very aware of how to take an idea, and make it a working idea. ..

“Ultimately, he’ll look at the teams he knows, the teams he has to beat. Somebody (else) may have a great idea on how to defend the Colts offense. Someone may have a great idea how to defend in the red zone. Ultimately, what you try to do is draw out that one part that really is the most vital, and incorporate that idea, into a working idea within your own scheme so you have the ability to take the best at what they do, and fit it in … what Bill’s very good at, so incredibly shrewd at, is his ability to decipher, diagnose (situations), then be able to take those things and bring it into his own framework and then fit it into what he does.

“Bill’s not a guy that wastes time. There’s always a purpose. He never watches tape, he studies tape. There’s a difference. Therefore, when he’s studying, he’s studying for a purpose to get something out of it. There’s an agenda to what he’s trying to get done. And that will transpose itself this year against the opponents he has to play.

“That said, I think ultimately, we’re back into an ’80s type game. When I first came into the league in ’84, and Bill was with the Giants in ’85, there wasn’t free agency. There wasn’t OTAs. There was one minicamp. That’s it. So the people who’ve been around that train wreck of a system will have an advantage when they do come back because they’ll know how to put in things in a short period of time.”